Things get worse before they get better

January 4th, 2022, 11:23 am. That was the last time I felt I was really me. If you asked me I
couldn't pinpoint what exactly changed, but I know it's there. Like a shadow you see out of the
corner of your eye that seems to get closer, I see the inevitable realization that what happened
that day pushed me off an edge that I will never climb back up again and that no matter how hard
I try, the thoughts I had that day and the months following will always pop back up in my mind.

I don't think I've ever been that low in my life. I would stand around in gym class and while
others played and had fun I would think about how they just all hated me and wish I had never
come to their school, how I was annoying and that I should just shut up and never talk again. I
remember pushing everyone away because I couldn't piece myself back together without ripping
myself completely apart first. And I let myself do that, I let myself not eat so I could feel prettier,
I let myself be mean to my friends, decline calls and ignore texts because I thought I deserved
that. Because I thought that if this man who said he loved me so much could hurt me, I truly had
to have deserved it. And for so long I truly believed that. I let what he did to me rip me to shreds,
I was a shell of the person I once was and I don't think can ever go back to that sunshine girl who
had been bullied, and hurt but still went through it all with a smile on her face knowing that it
would be ok and that one day when I'd be a big girl, I'd always be happy and smiling and be in
love and have everything I ever wanted. The 10-year-old me thought that while the 15-year-old
me didn't want to be alive anymore. I think she would have been disappointed in me, would have
told me it was stupid to let a dumb boy get close to me anyway and that I was an idiot for
thinking starving myself would make me feel better about myself. 10 year old me would have
smacked me in the face and told me to get my sh*t together.

Of course, I didn't get it together. Not immediately at least. I let myself spiral and spiral until one
day, I was sitting on the floor of my shower, sobbing listening to Taylor swift and I just thought
to myself, I am letting one person's actions rule my life. I am giving him enough power over me
to completely ruin me and that was not the person I was nor the person I ever wanted to be. So I
got up, looked at myself in the mirror and decided I was done being depressed, done being too
anxious to even leave the house or answer the phone from a family member. I told myself that I
was too smart to let other people trample all over me. And it worked

On January 4th, 2022 one of my best friends, a guy who told me he loved me and couldn't live
without me, decided it would be a funny prank to pretend as he killed himself with the help of
two of my best friends. That morning at 11:23 I woke up to 50 texts all detailing his suicide and
the fact it was my fault. I will forever be grateful to the girl in my class, one of my best friends
and even though we've had our ups and downs is always there when I need her, for picking up
the phone while I was sobbing so hard that I couldn't hear a word she saying, for screaming at
me over and over again "He's alive, he's alive" I think I owe my life to that girl who comforted
me and talked me out of my darkest moments. Looking back on it now I don't think I deserved
everything she gave me but I will forever be grateful and have a special place in my heart for her.
I'm ashamed to admit after a month or two of not speaking to the boy, in one of my lowest
moments I reached out to him. I thought he was the only one who truly listened to me and that he
was what I needed. Of course, that was stupid though and I'm extremely disappointed I was
dumb enough to keep talking to him. I am thankful to him for showing me that for me to get
better, I have to want to get better. And while I am in no way perfect mentally, I am proud of
how far I've gotten and proud to say on the first of January 2023, blocked Liam on all platforms
and deleted the main app we used to communicate. Out of sheer will, I just decided I was going
to get better, and I did.